BBQ report

I should write all this out before it fades. :-)

Now that our BBQ has been held and considered a relative success, I can admit our "D'oh!" for the week: our pool filter acquired a loud noise midweek, to the point where we couldn't run it without bothering the neighbors. And you can't run the heater without the filter. So the pool started getting colder. My idea to cure this was to use the hot tub to drain heated water into the pool. Well and good, except that when we went to the hot tub to implement this, it was only faintly warm. If we tried to turn on the heater in the hot tub, it got into a breaker loop; resetting the breaker at the tub would throw the breaker at the outlet, and vice versa. We called Marvin the Hot Tub Guy on Thursday, but he only checks messages in the morning, and as it turns out was unavailable on Friday. He called us on Saturday morning -- as it takes 12-14 hours to heat a tub, obviously too late to get it fixed in time -- so instead we invited him to join us at the BBQ, which he accepted. Unfortunately he must've had some other "help!" calls yet unheard in his voicemail, as he showed up, quietly replaced the heating element...with people nearby, enjoying the food and watching him curiously. We tried to ply him with food and drink, but he politely demurred. He was badly sunburned on his face and shoulders from previous work, but at least he could work in the shade at our place. We did manage to supply him with a cold soda, and as before I sat nearby and watched him curiously, trying to learn how the thing is put together, and how to recognize symptoms in the future. I also tried to keep him company for his trouble, and not make him feel ignored and unappreciated. Despite our best efforts, he slipped out after the job was done, apparently having 2(!) more tubs to fix before the day was out, despite normally working only M-F. Jeez...he gets points for customer service, but he should also learn when to tell us customers to go away, he'll be happy to help us on Monday! :-) Thank you for your help, Marvin the Hot Tub Guy! We weren't expecting you to fix it *that day*, for goodness' sake, but it did make us feel better, and hopefully it means extra income in the bank for you.

We tried starting an hour earlier this year (11am) so that our swimmers could take advantage of the extended hours with the sun on the pool, but obviously with the heater out it didn't end up making any difference. People didn't show up until 12:30 anyway. :-} At which point we got Marcus and company, my parents, and my eldest sister Elizabeth + bro-in-law Ron & nephew Tony, the former 2 armed with coffee, the latter armed with a huge inflated dolphin. My thoughtful comment "Well, at least he came with a porpoise." made Ron do a spit-take. :-) I can't remember if I've mentioned to you five that I won an inflatable rectangular ball pen thingy at the last Lakeside silent auction in May, but we set it up in the front yard for any little ones interested. We only ended up having one taker, Marcus's little 1-1/2 year old James, but hey, it made it worth the effort. :-) We thought of you, though, Susan!

People continued to arrive throughout the afternoon; as usual, G held court in the back yard, BBQing buffalo burgers, venison, duck, rabbit, exotic sausages, hot dogs and home-made veggie burgers on demand, and I spent most of my day in the kitchen, prepping stuff destined to be dipped in chocolate fondue (with much help from Elizabeth, thank you!!!), fielding logistics issues (d'oh, need to refill the coolers with sodas), blithely sending people off to answer the front door for me, supplying our engineers with our (well-loved) remote-control sub, and a zillion other things. After the fondue went out (at 5:45, so our 7pm RWC skaters could grab a bite before leaving) both the indoor experimental fountain and the outdoor traditional one, I could relax a bit, and finally made it outside to chat.

Our food supply was amplified in a very fun way as usual by guest contributions along the "something you don't think anyone else will bring" theme; I think I had to answer "What's THAT?" fairly often, and didn't always know the answer. :-) I do remember parsnip latkes, several types of exotic tomatoes, chinese chicken salad, a couple of bottles of wine (one made by a guest's own budding winery), some odd salty vegetable from Wendy (called 'seaweed' something?), honey straws, Greek beefy noodly something, several types of Trader Joe's trail mix, chicken skewers, chocolate soy ice cream, fancy grapes, raspberries, pound cake, and something large, rectangular and creamy-looking that was thrust into my hands with the words "Here, it's probably melting!" :-)

I guess we could consider the new fondue fountain a success, if only from sheer novelty. It seemed a bit thick and didn't flow as smoothly as it should (do things ever work as well as the photos show on the box??), but that didn't stop people declaring that sitting next to it was dangerous for the waistline. I hope to experiment further with recipes to find something I can put together quickly that will flow as advertised, *hopefully* using my own ingredients rather than having to buy the fountain makers' chocolate. Perhaps a version of the fondue we had outdoors, which is my own recipe, but thin it down somewhat. I did buy some chocolate I didn't get a chance to work with that says it has extra cocoa butter in it, which should give me a jump on the flow issue (since the alternative is adding vegetable oil or finding an independent cocoa butter source). Quality chocolate can get dang expensive, though (think $15/lb, and it takes 4 lbs to start up the fountain), so I'll have to figure something out. Since a single batch of the outdoor serving version only takes 4oz of chocolate and we go through at *most* 2 batches, perhaps I'll just put BBQ sauce in the fountain next year or something. ;-)

We had a surprisingly large group at gametime; Hoffy showed us how to play Mafia (during which Karen, Michael and I worked on smiling innocently), April enthralled some 14 or so of us with 'Apples to Apples' (I was able to win one round with wildcard 'Chocolate Fondue', followed by the almost-guaranteed-trump card, 'Hockey'), then later the hard-core gamers played some Cheapass Games before calling it a night. We got to bed at something like 1am, and slept 'til noon, at which point I had to drag my butt out of bed for my Fremont game at 2:30. We skated 10 for 2 periods and 11 for the 3rd. I was distracted by some stuff we'd worked on at practice and my faceoffs were off, but we worked hard. They had a couple of formidable subs and their usual quickly-meshing roster, and we ended up losing 2-1. As one of two centers on the big ice (who had been doing BBQ prep work on her feet all week) I got worn down a bit, and had a 'meh' game. I had to admit that the most fun for me was when I went in as sixth skater for the goalie in the last minute of the 3rd, throwing caution to the winds and sprinting into the play to make something happen. I felt like I powered right through Amy once (she was ok after, I checked :-) ), and made some contact with Andrea (didn't bother to check, she can take it! *duck*), but unfortunately we couldn't do any scoring...ah well. I did notice that the scoresheet showed #49 (me) assisting on one team's goal *and* scoring and assisting on the other team's two goals. Go me, I scored for both teams!!! Oh wait, that's bad, isn't it? :-) (Amy had borrowed my jersey, heh)

Got home from the game on Sunday, cleaned some more dishes with G, and then we collapsed, exhausted. We slept through the late afternoon and early evening, and even then felt like it was an unusually large effort to get up; no strength or stamina, and faint headaches. We supposed it might be due to dehydration compounded with being on our feet and 'on' for most of the day on Saturday; I'm also not sure we got much food...I remember half a delicious sausage, some fruit salad, some of that tri-color cheese on baguette bread, and a couple of fondue dips, but that's it for lunch and dinner. So (back to Sunday night) we dragged ourselves downstairs, snacked on leftovers while chugging down several glasses of water and watching 'Dirty Jobs', then went to bed and slept solidly. I'm still physically worn today, but feeling better than yesterday. Not much appetite. But tons of good BBQ memories. :-)